


Conversational Coziness

by jesterlady



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Confessions, Gen, Honesty, One Shot, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-04
Updated: 2011-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-25 16:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Martha talk on the TARDIS, explaining some things.  Post Family of Blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversational Coziness

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own DW. The title is by Eugene Peterson

It was a quiet moment in the Tardis. They didn’t occur too often, so when they did, the Doctor and Martha took advantage of them. This particular quiet moment was something both of them needed as each of them was dealing with the aftermath of what had occurred while the Doctor was human.

They’d talked about it briefly; the Doctor had apologized and thanked her. Martha had covered her tracks over hasty outbursts as best she could. Now they tended to avoid the subject altogether. But it was a united effort and almost seemed to make them stronger, more able, more connected and better at what they did. Martha fancied she could even run faster.

During this quiet moment they were in the control room. The Doctor had tentatively agreed to let Martha try her hand at flying the Tardis. Five seconds in they’d looked at each other, laughed, and headed for the kitchen. It wasn’t an activity for this sort of day. This day didn’t need any amateurs at the helm.

“Cuppa?”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

The Doctor bustled around the kitchen and Martha watched him rattle around in the cupboards. It had taken her an hour to become acquainted with everything in there. The Doctor didn’t seem to have it down after nine hundred years. There was something in that, she thought.

“I’ll get it. No worries. By the way.” His voice became muffled as he stuck his head further in the cupboard. “I noticed there was a reading indicating abnormal lunar activity near the planet of Bolovio. Lovely place, full of marble statues. They say the moonlight there is rather intoxicating. Always thought it’d be a brilliant place to go. Fancy a trip?”

“You know me, up for anything.”

She shook her head as he started to ramble again. Sometimes she wondered if he even heard what the people around him said. It seemed all he needed was a sounding board. Still, she knew it wasn’t quite true and she was glad it wasn’t true. There was nowhere else she wanted to be.

“Here we are. Brighten your step, lighten the heart.”

The Doctor set a cup in front of her and leaned back against the counter as he impatiently waited for his to cool. He didn’t like to sit down, even in the kitchen. She could tell he was on the point of getting out the sonic screwdriver in the hope of cooling the temperature.

“Here.” She got up and plucked the cup out of his hand. Ignoring his face, she got some ice cubes and dropped them inside. “If you’re worried about them watering it down, just pull them out in a second.”

“Do they do that on Earth?” he inquired, peering at the ice cubes as if there were a brand new species. “I never noticed. I’ve spent so much time there you’d think I’d know everything.”

“I rather think you spend most of your time there dodging gunshots and averting alien invasions, Doctor.”

“Well, the odd one.”

He smiled and actually sat down. Martha regained her own seat and they sat in companionable silence for approximately one minute before the Doctor started to talk. He made big plans for their outing to Bolovio and Martha listened, every once in a while cutting in with a much needed practical suggestion or sarcastic remark.

“This expedition is going to take years, I guess,” she said during a moment of silence.

He snorted at her, but took a gulp of tea instead of answering.

“You’re brilliant, you know,” he said, flashing her a huge smile. It always did something to her insides. “Can’t imagine the Tardis without you, Martha Jones. Give it a bit of sparkle. And I’m not blathering, I mean it. Your ice cube tricks and everything else. All part and parcel of making a Doctor happy.”

“Doing my part for the universe,” Martha responded.

She glowed inside, but she knew the Doctor’s compliments overflowed on occasion and took them as he meant them. It was something she’d had to learn to do. Especially since the Family of Blood.

“Martha,” he said and then hesitated. He set his tea down and reached for her hand. “You saved us back there. Not me, not John Smith, just you. Despite the rather amazing stunts I pulled off, I couldn’t have done them without you and your…tenacity.”

“What’s brought this on then?”

She wasn’t averse to talking about it, but she’d thought they’d put it behind them.

“Thinking about things. This brain works faster than ten human brains put together. Why, I’m calculating pi as we speak.”

“Makes me feel better,” she said wryly.

“Okay, all that aside. Being human was eye-opening in the respect that there are some things I can’t do and you can. You’re fantastic. Humans in general and you in particular. Always said so. Now, if you just say that then it doesn’t mean anything. But I used my rather large dose of intelligence to work out that while I have given you passage on the Tardis, it might not be enough for a human.”

“We’re not children, Doctor.”

She couldn’t make out what he was getting at.

“No, no, getting bigger every day, you are,” he said proudly, as if he’d made it happen. “Oodles of potential, boiling to a point all the time. Still, we are fundamentally different and that’s something I don’t always remember in the magnificent specimen I’ve got in you. So, just remember that even if I don’t say it, I’m happy you’re here.”

“There’s nowhere else I wanna be. It’s the best life in the world.”

“Well, yeah. Still, you give up things. And I can’t stop all the evil in the world, especially that which I seem to carry with me.”

All the bounce had gone out of him and Martha ached to see him like that. It didn’t happen that often, but when it did, she felt helpless.

“Doctor, you save lives. You give people meaning. That’s not nothing, it’s something. And now that I’m here, you can do it twice as good. All the people who died, it’s not your fault. It’s whatever killed them’s fault.”

The Doctor almost flinched and moved away. But then he moved back.

“Martha Jones, you remember the night we met? Moonlight glittering off Judoon?”

“Lovely time.”

“You told me you had a cousin who worked at Canary Wharf. I’ve told you I was there. I told you about Rose and the Cybermen and the Daleks and even Mickey the Idiot. But I never told you about your cousin or why my hearts thumped so loudly when I first saw you.”

“What happened?” Martha gripped her cup of tea with her free hand.

“She’d been taken over by the Cybermen. She had implants giving her orders. They were invading, they were there and I had to stop them. I took out her implants. She died right then and there because of me.”

Martha took her hand out of the Doctor’s. She walked out of the kitchen. She went to her room.

 

***

 

The Doctor sat at the table. It was some time that he was alone there.

“That must’ve been hard.”

The Doctor jumped up when he heard Martha’s voice.

“It wasn’t easy.”

“Doctor, how long have I known you?”

“Almost a year now. Been a brilliant one.”

“Yeah, couldn’t have put it better myself. A brilliant year where I’ve seen you make hard decision after hard decision. I watched you as the Daleks killed the new humans in New York. I saw your face when they grabbed me in New New York. I was there when the sun was burning inside you. Doctor.” She moved close to him and put her hand on his arm. “It’s okay. It’s not right all the time, but it’s okay. And I can’t wait to go to Bolovio with you.”

His face split into a smile.

“Prime of the species you are, Miss Jones.”

“Right back at you, Mr. Smith.”

He put his arms around her and squeezed tight. She hugged him back and let him take her by the hand and tug her back to the control room. The quiet moment had passed and it was the type of day that almost required an amateur at the helm. A day for adventuring.


End file.
